Is the Chrysler group for sale? During a presentation to analysts and journalists today, DaimlerChrysler CFO Bodo Uebber refused to rule out the sale or spinoff of its unprofitable Chrysler group.

"We don't exclude anything here," including structural changes, Uebber said during his third-quarter earnings teleconference today. "We will do our analysis. Second, we will talk about measures. And third, we will draw our conclusions."

Asked again whether DaimlerChrysler has put the Chrysler group up for sale, Uebber repeated the same answer without giving a yes or no. "I don't do any speculation," he said.

Chrysler group losses dragged down DaimlerChrysler's third-quarter financial results. The Chrysler group lost $1.47 billion, down from a $393 million profit for the same period a year ago.

The company predicts Chrysler will lose $1.2 billion in 2006. DaimlerChrysler posted quarterly net income of $680 million and projects a companywide operating-profit target of $6.29 billion for the full year.

DaimlerChrysler has assigned a team of senior executives to study seven major facets of the Chrysler group's business. The teams have been asked to improve margins by $1,000 per vehicle. Officials declined to give a timetable for the internal study.

Speculation that DaimlerChrysler might sell its Chrysler Group (which lost $1.5 billion in the third quarter of 2006) mounted after Chief Financial Officer Bobo Uedder gave vague answer to analysts in a recent conference call who asked if it could be sold off.

In reaction, DaimlerChrysler said in a news release that it "reaffirms its previous statements made to the media that there are no plans to sell Chrysler Group. During today's third-quarter earnings analyst/media conference call, the company appropriately chose not to add to the speculation regarding this topic. However, the resulting coverage and comments made it clear that this 'not-for-sale' statement needed to be reaffirmed."

uhhh...today the WSJ announced that US auto sales went up 6.1% in the past quarter. Some of that can obviously be attributed to Chrysler. They already announced a few weeks ago that they weren't going to make their sales projections but they're trying to reform too like the other big 2, just not as much. Give it time. DCX will not dump the C.